


Hardware and Auto Parts

by spuffyduds



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:37:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray can't believe it when his romantic fortunes take a turn for the better.  He'd <i>like</i> to believe it, but, really, he can't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hardware and Auto Parts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [primrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/primrose/gifts).



> Set in an AU where Ray Kowalski didn't go undercover as Vecchio.
> 
> Many thanks to my wondrous and speedy beta, Lamentables!

Ray’s already picked out a new flashlight and is just roaming the aisles, because he’s always kinda liked the way hardware stores smell, when this big pretty dog trots up to him and starts sniffing his pants.

“Hey, big guy,” Ray says, and hunkers down to scritch him between the ears.

And then a couple turns the corner into his aisle and Ray has a really excellent three-second fantasy where he’s in the middle, because holy hell, they’re both gorgeous.

“Dief, leave the man alone,” the guy says. Ray looks up at him and grins, says, “It’s okay, he probably just smells my dog. You smell Killer, boy?”

He starts to stand up, but Dief leans hard against his legs while he’s doing it and makes him stagger right into the guy, who half-catches him and then—blushes, what the hell?

The woman gives them a long look and then says, “Fraser, see if you think any of these flowerpots work for the ficus, okay? I’ll be in the paint aisle,” and then Ray’s standing there awkwardly with this guy—Fraser, apparently—that he just kind of fell on.

“So, wife got a big renovation going?” he says.

“Oh! Elaine’s not—we’re partners,” Fraser says. “Work partners. Police officers. Well, Elaine is a police officer in the traditional sense locally, and I’m a liaison from the Canadian consulate, and…”

Ray loses track of the rest of that very long sentence, because, two things. Number one, cops of some kind means they have something in common, something to talk about. Number two and more important—your average guy is out with a hottie like that and some stranger mistakenly thinks they’re together, he’s not gonna rush to correct that mistake, right? He’s gonna leave that mistake just like it is and maybe swagger a little.

Fraser was really, really eager to correct that mistake. So maybe he and Ray _really_ have something to talk about.

“Hey, I used to be a cop too,” he starts out. And he means to keep it light and funny, starts out joking about how he got out of the job because the coffee was so damn bad, but Fraser’s such a good listener—nodding and “mmm”ing in the right places, never taking his eyes off Ray—that pretty soon Ray finds himself having this really serious conversation there in the middle of the flowerpot aisle. Telling Fraser how he switched over to firearms instructor thinking that the job would bore the hell out of him but it would save his marriage, and then it turned out that he _loved_ the job and lost Stella anyway.

“I’m so sorry, Ray,” Fraser says, and he sounds so much like he means it that Ray gets brave.

“Yeah, it was rough at first,” Ray says. “But we’d been together forever. High school sweethearts and all. And it’s been good to have a chance to, um, experiment a little. For the first time.” And he leaves it at that, leaves it where Fraser could choose to interpret experiment as “with lots of other women,” but Fraser blushes again, leans in closer and says, very softly, “Elaine has been vehemently insisting that I need to get out there and…experiment more, myself.”

“ _Has_ she,” Ray says. And then Elaine, who is Ray’s new favorite person, turns the corner and takes one look at them and says, “Dief! You wanna come hang out with me tonight?”

Dief barks. Fraser says, “Coffee?” Ray says “Yes.”

 

Ray hardly even notices the coffee they’re drinking. Possibly there are pastries. Because—it’s weird, the formal way Fraser talks and the way he flushes so easily—Ray would put serious money down that he is _not_ a “do it on the first not-even-really-a-date” kind of guy. But he would also put serious money down that today, Fraser _is_ going to be that guy. There’s a kind of--buzz in the air, a low hum, and every time their feet bump under the table the hair stands up on the back of Ray’s neck, and they’re bumping feet under the table a _lot_.

Crazily, Ray finds himself trying to stretch this out, to keep talking because it’s been so long since he just _knew_ he was gonna get some that he kind of wants to wallow in the knowing for a while before the actual getting.

So he ends up telling Fraser about a bakery burglary where the burglar had been hiding in a giant flour bin, and Ray ended up in a foot chase, with all these hard-ass seen-it-all Chicagoans turning to watch a cop running after this ghost-white guy hoofing it down the street with little white clouds poofing off him.

And Fraser comes back with a story involving his old partner and a poncho and a bomb, and--

“Wait. _Wait_ ,” Ray says. He squints at Fraser and mentally strips him out of his jeans and t-shirt. And gets distracted at that point, which who could blame him, but then he remembers the next step in the plan, which is mentally putting Fraser in a big red uniform.

Hell yes, he _has_ seen Fraser’s picture in the paper.

“That was _you_?” he says. “With the courtroom and the bomb, and the nuclear train and the horses? You’re _that_ Mountie?”

“Well. Ah. There is a limited supply of Mounties locally, yes.” He looks a little worried, like maybe Ray isn’t gonna want to get with _that_ Mountie.

Ray grins at him. “You’re fucking _nuts_ ,” he says, approvingly. Very approvingly, and Fraser gives him a big beautiful smile, and okay. Enough with the waiting. Ray grabs the check and says, “C’mon.”

 

They’ve barely made it into Ray’s apartment when Fraser’s got him pushed up against the wall, kissing him like crazy. It’s pretty clear that it’s been a while for Fraser too, and Ray has no idea why that would be true for a guy who looks like that, but Ray is perfectly happy to be the object of desperation. He’s starting to relax into the kissing when Killer trots out of the bedroom and yaps at them.

Fraser pulls back to look at her and then just loses it. Turns out he’s one of those big guys with a goofy little giggle, which makes Ray smile.

“I must admit, Ray,” Fraser says after he’s calmed down a bit, “when I heard your dog’s name, I was not expecting a Pomeranian.”

“Named her after an old-time pro wrestler, Killer Kowalski,” Ray says. “Don’t think the guy was any relation, but the name always cracked me up. So, yeah, after Stella and I split up I went to the pound, and you know how it is, I wanted to take every dog there home, but Killer--she just had _attitude_.”

Killer yaps in agreement and Fraser solemnly says, “I’m sure she’s terrifying under the proper circumstances.”

Ray narrows his eyes at Fraser, grabs him by the hips and pulls him in close and says, “You wanna make fun of my dog, or you wanna fuck me?”

Fraser, it turns out, isn’t especially interested in making fun of his dog.

They kiss their way down the hall into Ray’s bedroom, and just pull apart long enough to strip. Ray gets a general “yeah, nice,” impression, but he can’t look for too long because he’s too eager to touch.

He buries his face in Fraser’s neck, nuzzles while he runs his hands up and down Fraser’s broad back. Fraser groans and arches into him, which bumps their hard-ons into each other. Ray _gasps_ with how fucking great that feels.

“Bed,” he manages, and starts scrabbling through his bedside drawer for condoms and lube. He finds some, hallelujah, and tosses them on the bed.

“Ray--are you sure, we don’t have to start with--“

“Go for it,” Ray says, and climbs onto the bed on his elbows and knees.

Fraser nods, looking weirdly serious, and then he lubes up his fingers and takes just fucking _forever_ getting Ray lubed up and relaxed and ready. Ray tries to tell him to hurry the hell up a couple of times, but whenever he starts to, Fraser reaches under him and starts stroking his balls and his dick, which is hard to argue with.

Finally, finally Fraser eases into him, slowly and carefully. Ray is patient with that for a little bit, and then Fraser leans into his ear and murmurs, “You’re _sure_ you’re all right?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ray says, and slams himself backward onto Fraser’s cock, hard. Fraser, thank god, finally gets the memo and starts fucking him hard and fast. Ray is gonna feel this tomorrow, oh yeah, and Fraser gets his hand under Ray again and does great things with it, and Ray comes his brains out.

His elbows stop working, and he flops facedown into his pillow. Fraser thrusts a few more times and then shudders all over and moans in Ray’s ear before collapsing on top of him.

Ray gets a hand up behind him and pats Fraser awkwardly on the ribs.

They disentangle after a minute, and Ray sorta wonders where the evening is headed from here. It’s already been the best day in a long while, so Ray’d have no room for complaints even if Fraser gave him a polite handshake and headed home. But what happens instead is Fraser says, “You bought the coffee, why don’t I order us some Chinese food?”

“Sure,” Ray says, and Fraser rolls over and picks up the bedside phone, dials and, holy crap, starts speaking Chinese. He raises an eyebrow at Ray, and Ray says, “Something spicy with shrimp.”

They take a shower together while they’re waiting on the food, which gives Ray a chance to get a good look at everything and, well, the look is really good. And then they pull on clothes just long enough to eat, which Ray rushes through because he is getting hard again watching Fraser be ridiculously competent with chopsticks.

Fraser doesn’t leave until the next morning, and he doesn’t give Ray a polite handshake. He gives Ray a long dirty kiss and his phone number.

 

Ray is stunned by how well things go for the next couple of months. They hang out. They eat together and go to movies and go to Ray’s gym. Elaine seems to like Ray, which Ray’s pretty sure is a requirement. (Fraser murmurs something once, late-night, curled around Ray in the dark, about “not quite trusting my own instincts in romance anymore without consultation,” which sounds like it maybe has a story attached, but Ray doesn’t want to hear it just yet.) Dief and Killer seem to like each other, even.

Fraser’s stubborn and pigheaded and sentimental and smart and funny and ticklish. Ray can work with all of that.

And the sex, the sex is great. And frequent.

So, yeah, Ray’s pretty much waiting for things to go spectacularly wrong.

And sure enough, he gets a call from Fraser that--well, from anyone else, he would think they were high or just making up the most bizarre possible bullshit to bail out of whatever this is they’re in.

But this is Fraser. Weird shit happens to Fraser.

So Ray listens through this incomprehensible story of a returned old partner and some other guy back from the dead, and not-dead guy had something to do with Fraser’s mother dying, and Ray says, “Sure, Fraser, of course you gotta go. Stay safe.”

And then Ray calls up Elaine and says, “ _What?_ ”

Elaine comes over and brings beer. She gives him a lot more detail than Fraser did; he was pretty frantic to get going, when he called. Ex-partner apparently got lightly creased in the arm in a gunfight they got into, but went north with Fraser anyway.

“He didn’t mention a gunfight,” Ray says.

“Well. He wouldn’t want you to worry,” Elaine says, and they sit on the sofa and drink beer and worry.

 

When Fraser calls again a couple of days later so much more weird shit has happened that Ray can’t even process it. He’s pretty sure that Fraser hasn’t slept any in days, so maybe that part about Dief parachuting was a hallucination.

Fraser sounds pretty damn lucid, though, when he tells Ray he’s gonna stay up there a couple more weeks. Hike around by himself, clear his head.

Ray tries really hard not to think about how when somebody says “I need some time alone to clear my head,” it usually seems to mean, “To clear YOU out of it, Ray.” Because Fraser has absolutely just gone through a lot, and head-clearing sounds like a good plan. Sure.

When he talks to Elaine about it, though, she doesn’t quite look at him, says, “Yeah, he’s...been really homesick, Ray.”

Which Ray hadn’t known, because he is a moron.

So in an effort not to continue being a moron, he explains to himself that Fraser is probably not on the official RCMP shit list anymore, and in fact is probably on their official “What can we do to make you happy, Constable?” list, and that what would make Fraser happy is almost certainly Canada.

He explains this to himself for two solid weeks, and when Fraser gets back to civilization and calls him to tell him when his plane is getting in Ray says, “Yeah, sure I’ll pick you up at the airport.” And then I’ll help you put your stuff in boxes and put you on another plane back, he adds in his head.

His stomach lurches when he sees Fraser, but he tries to smile. Given the way Fraser blinks at him, it apparently doesn’t work very well.

He puts Fraser’s bags in his trunk and Fraser climbs into the passenger side, and Ray just drives. He’s gritting his teeth too hard to chat.

After a few minutes, though, Fraser slides his hand across the seats, touches Ray’s thigh lightly. “Ray? I’m glad to see you, are you...” and trails off.

“Look,” Ray says. “You don’t have to let me down easy, okay? We been, whatever it is, a few weeks. It was a great few weeks, but that is not long enough that you owe me anything.”

“It’s a long time to _me_ ,” Fraser says. Ray looks over at him, and whoa, Fraser’s _pissed_. Ray hasn’t seen that real often, and suddenly he’s furious too, because who is getting left here? It ain’t Fraser.

He hits the brakes and pulls into a gas station, parks as far away from the building as he can get because if anybody looks at him right now he’s gonna punch ‘em.

“I get it, Fraser,” he says. “I get that you were homesick, which did not sink in to my thick head before because I thought that we were--that we were having a good time, but I get now that you were homesick, and then you got to go home, and why the fuck would you come back here?”

“I came back, Ray,” Fraser says, still in a terrifically pissy voice, “because after I fell out of a plane--“

“After you _what_?”

“That is not the point, Ray. After I--“

“That is not the _point_? That is some kind of _side story_? How in the hell is falling out of a plane ever _not the point?_ ”

Fraser pinches his nose and breathes loudly for a minute. “If you will just let me finish. After I arrived on this ice field, by a means we will discuss later, I was so overjoyed that I said, out loud, ‘I’m home!’”

“Exactly. Great. You want me to help you start packing?”

“Let. Me. _Finish_. I said that, and then I stood there while the echoes died away, and the euphoria died with them, and the first thought that entered my head was, ‘Now how do I get Ray up here?’”

Ray sits there and stares at his windshield. Not even _through_ his windshield, just _at_ it, he’s sitting there trying not to listen to that unbelievable sentence, trying to drown it out by thinking, “Hey, I really need to replace my wiper blades, they’re not doing a great job lately.”

And then Fraser says, “Ray?” in a small voice, and when Ray looks at him--Fraser’s not pissed anymore, he’s scared.

“Hey,” Ray says. “Hey,” and then because he’s gotta be honest, here, he says, “I’m not sure you do. Get me up there, I mean. That’s a long fucking way off, Fraser. But man, I do want--I want you to--I want us to--” He rubs at his face in frustration; a sentence would be good. “I want _us_ ,” he says.

He peeks through his fingers at Fraser, and Fraser’s just lighting up, that great big smile that you don’t see on him that often.

“I could get you up there. If you gave me a few years to persuade you,” he says.

“Um. Okay,” Ray says, and he absolutely cannot sit here and think about what he maybe just agreed to, so he climbs out of the car and goes into the gas station to buy new wiper blades.

 

Killer’s so excited to see Fraser she spins in circles, and Fraser sits down on the floor to pet her and explain to her about Dief being in quarantine for a few days. Ray is maybe catching some of Fraser’s particular crazy because then Ray gives her a long lecture about how Ray and Fraser need some alone time and she can’t whine if they close the bedroom door, okay?

She doesn’t whine, though, so maybe crazy works, with dogs.

They close the bedroom door, and Ray touches and rubs and licks every inch of Fraser and then fucks him stupid.

Ray’s fairly stupid himself after that and manages to leave the door open when he staggers out to the bathroom. So when he first stirs awake in the morning, he finds Killer lying on Fraser’s chest, rising and falling with his snores.

Ray snorts, and Fraser blinks awake and immediately goes cross-eyed, because Killer’s almost nose-to-nose with him.

“She _is_ terrifying,” he says.

“Yeah, well, proper circumstances,” Ray says, and throws his arm over Fraser’s waist, and goes back to sleep.

\---END--- 


End file.
